And all, the women who were seated rose; all the caps fell, uncovering hair black, blonde or white, and the entire people made the sign of the cross, while the players, with chests and foreheads streaming with perspiration, stopped in the heat of the game and stood in meditation with heads bent-- At two o'clock, the game having come to an end gloriously for the French, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho went in their little wagon, accompanied and acclaimed by all the young men of Erribiague; then Gracieuse sat between the two, and they started for their long, charming trip, their pockets full of the gold which they had earned, intoxicated by their joy, by the noise and by the sunlight.
And Ramuntcho, who retained the taste of yesterday's kiss, felt like shouting to them: "This little girl who is so pretty, as you see, is mine! Her lips are mine, I had them yesterday and will take them again to-night!" They started and at once found silence again, in the shaded valleys bordered by foxglove and ferns-- To roll for hours on the small Pyrenean roads, to change places almost every day, to traverse the Basque country, to go from one village to another, called here by a festival, there by an adventure on the frontier--this was now Ramuntcho's life, the errant life which the ball-game made for him in the day-time and smuggling in the night-time.
Ascents, descents, in the midst of a monotonous display of verdure.
Woods of oaks and of beeches, almost inviolate, and remaining as they were in the quiet centuries .-- When he passed by some antique house, hidden in these solitudes of trees, he stopped to enjoy reading, above the door, the traditional legend inscribed in the granite: "Ave Maria! in the year 1600, or in the year 1500, such a one, from such a village, has built this house, to live in it with such a one, his wife." Very far from all human habitation, in a corner of a ravine, where it was warmer than elsewhere, sheltered from all breezes, they met a peddler of holy images, who was wiping his forehead.

He had set down his basket, full of those colored prints with gilt frames that represent saints with Euskarian legends, and with which the Basques like to adorn their old rooms with white walls.

And he was there, exhausted from fatigue and heat, as if wrecked in the ferns, at a turn of those little, mountain routes which run solitary under oaks.
Gracieuse came down and bought a Holy Virgin.
"Later," she said to Ramuntcho, "we shall put it in our house as a souvenir--" And the image, dazzling in its gold frame, went with them under the long, green vaults-- They went out of their path, for they wished to pass by a certain valley of the Cherry-trees, not in the hope of finding cherries in it, in April, but to show to Gracieuse the place, which is renowned in the entire Basque country.
It was almost five o'clock, the sun was already low, when they reached there.

It was a shaded and calm region, where the spring twilight descended like a caress on the magnificence of the April foliage.

The air was cool and suave, fragrant with hay, with acacia.